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A Clean Assembly – Part Three

In this part, I shall embark on discussing with myself the way the government handled the BERSIH 2.0 situation.

So it has been reported today that the EO6 or PSM6 depending on how you look at them, will be charged on 3rd August 2011 for being in possession of, and distributing subversive materials. Therefore, I shall address this issue before embarking on other issues relating to how the government handled the whole BERSIH 2.0 issue.

The PSM members were caught by the police distributing subversive materials (read: communist) several days before the BERSIH 2.0 rally. They were held under the Emergency (Public Order and Prevention of Crime) Ordinance, 1969. Personally, I do not think it was the correct Act used to put them in detention. A more appropriate Act would have been the Internal Security Act, 1960. The alledge crime committed was too serious to just use the Emergency (Public Order and Prevention of Crime) Ordinance; furthermore, there were more than one person that the police needed to investigate, and the process would have taken longer than just a few days or weeks. They would need to check their background, their links, contacts etc to determine if the whole network could be taken down. Section 29(1) of the Internal Security Act, 1960 would have covered the necessity to detain the six, while Section 29(3)(a)(b)(c) of the same Act would have sufficed in determining the nature of their offence. Section 29(4) further explains that “every subversive document shall be presumed to be a subversive document until the contrary is proved.”

The PSM6 should, as required by law, have immediately surrendered the “subversive documents” to the Police. This is stated in Section 29(2) of the Internal Security Act, 1960, among which states that:

“Any person or any office bearer of any association or any responsible member or agent of any organisation who receives any subversive document shall deliver the same without delay to a police officer…”

I can only guess why the government did not use the ISA on the PSM6; and my guess is whoever made the decision was either misinformed, ill-advised, pussy-footed, not well-versed, and even wanting to be populists. However, those are my guesses. The real reason remains with the authorities in concern.

If at any time then the authorities had felt that the use of the ISA would have been an overkill (which I personally do not), then holding them under the Societies Act, 1966 would have sufficed. Whoever advised the Home Minister should have known that Sections 47 and 48 of this Act cover the alledged offences, as the Communist Party of Malaya remains an unlawful society.

Whatever it is, the government should have allowed the police to hold the six much longer (the Inspector-General of Police has at his discretion the authority to hold them under the Emergency (POPO) Ordinance 1969 for 30 days. Allow the police to do their job properly so justice could be served to all parties involved, including to the six as well as to their family members.

It looks like this posting on the EO6 alone have taken up so much blog space. I guess I will have to continue in another blog posting.

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A Clean Assembly – Part Two

If I may recap what I had written in Part One of this series (A Clean Assembly – Part One), the right to assemble is NOT an absolute right, nor has it been guaranteed by Article 10 (1) of the Federal Constitution. In fact, the same right, as provided for in Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, has its limitations set as provided for by Article 29 (2) of the same. It reads:

In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

In drafting Article 29(2), the United Nations recognised that for every right and fundamental liberty granted to every human being, there would be a competing right of others that includes the society or state in which that person lives. Therefore, what BERSIH supporters see as their fundamental right to march, is actually limited by the right of road users whom had paid the tax to use the roads involved. The wishes of the majority who may or may not support the want to march to express; and these are the considerations the judicial review would have had to take, had BERSIH went to court to challenge the police’s refusal to issue a rally permit.

One should remember that Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights demands countries to balance these competing rights, on one side wanting recognition of their cause, and the limitations provided by the law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedom of others opposing, by meeting the requirements of national security, public order, public moral and public health and welfare. Public in this context refers to the others who do not join or support such cause.

As a person from the outside looking in, with BERSIH’s high profile individuals such as Ambiga Sreevasan, Edmund Bon et al, they should have known that a judicial review is needed for them to justify their claim to their right under Article 10 (1). However, in view of their failure to exercise that option gives me no choice other than to assume that it was an act of mala fide . Maximum publicity was the real intent.

Of course, as in any other rally, there will be culprits bent on causing havoc; as evident in a video shown of a politician riding on the BERSIH platform doing a countdown before charging towards the police line in the hope that the police would do something drastic to them, and these events are captured especially by the foreign media. This is where the history of such rally and of its organisers must be investigated thoroughly by the police and the judicial review in determining the clear and present danger, and incitement tests.

In Part Three, I shall write about the conduct of the government, the police, and of the six members of the Socialist Party of Malaysia arrested under the Emergency Ordinance.

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A Clean Assembly – Part One

I am not a lawyer.

I have never disputed the right to assemble by any one person or by a group. What I have been disputing is the fact that some uninformed or misinformed individuals have been abusing Article (10) of the Federal Constitution, as well as Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the right to assemble. To me, BERSIH on its own could have been well-received had it not been for its association with political parties representing the opposition, and a series of threats to public order made by its organisers added to the imbroglio.

Now, what went wrong, if any did at all?

Ambiga declared the march to be held on 9th July 2011. What should have (did it, I wouldn’t know) followed is the application for a rally permit, venue, route to be taken if there is a need to march, and so on. One must remember, the right to assemble is provided for in Article 10 (1) of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia. However, if you were to read that particular paragraph carefully, it begins like this:

Subject to clauses (2), (3) and (4), everyone has the right to freedom of speech and expression; have the right to assemble without arms; and the right to form associations. Clauses (2), (3) and (4) of the Article provides the limitations to those rights: they must not be a threat to national security, public order, public moral and public health.

Based on these limitations, the police, in the spirit of the law, should award the permit based on the details given by the permit applicant. Any dispute, then the applicant should take it to the courts for a judicial review, in which the court will then hear out the pros and cons of having the rally. In the US, two tests are applied to this stage of process: the Clear and Present Danger test; and the Incitement test.

The court will then find a remedy (a compromise if you must) on the matter. If judgement is made to allow the rally to go on, then the organisers would have to provide marshalls, routes, rules to be followed and so on. This matter should have been handled as per the recommendation for the Red Lion Square disorder of 1974 by Lord Justice Scarman. He said:

‘…’The right (to demonstrate) of course exists, subject only to limits required by the need for good order and the passage of traffic…’

Did the organisers of the march take the police’s objection to court? The answer as we all know is a simple but deafening NO.

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OR-CARE! Part 2

Engkorang mesti ingat aku dah hilang pening aku dengan OR-CARE!. Siapa yang tak tahu siapa atau apa tu, pergi baca dulu yang tu, baru baca balik yang ni.

OR-CARE ni ada perangai pelik. Kadang-kadang dia bertudung, kadang-kadang dia tak bertudung. Ikut suka hati dia. Pagi semalam, bini aku turun ke toilet bawah pukul 6 pagi, OR-CARE ada kat dalam tu…BERTUDUNG PENUH! Aku tak faham yang tu. Kenapa kena bertudung bila dalam bilik air. Engkorang ingat yang tu pelik? Kadang-kadang dia duduk kat luar rumah pun pakai tudung jugak. Apa nak hairan? DIA PAKAI TUDUNG TAPI SELUAR DIA PENDEK! Aku kengkadang reverse kereta takut accident sebab takut ketawa terbahak-bahak tengok dia lepas tu langgar kereta orang! Kadang-kadang tu dia duduk kat luar langsung tak bertudung. Tapi tidur nanti BERTUDUNG PENUH! Korang pikir la!

Dia masih lagi bercakap dalam bahasa alien dia. Aku sampai ke sudah tak faham apa yang dia cakap, atau sama ada dia sedang bercakap dengan aku atau dengan orang lain, atau dia bercakap sorang-sorang. Banyak kali aku terkena bila ke dapur dia terus bersuara, padahal batang hidung pun tak nampak sebab aku di dry kitchen, dia di wet kitchen. Bila aku tanya apa dia yang dia cuba nak sampaikan, dia akan cakap tak berhenti dalam bahasa alien dia. Aku dah belah nak naik ke bilik pun aku dengar dia bercakap lagi dalam nada yang sama, seolah-olah aku masih ada tercegat kat situ nak dengar apa dia cakap.

Tadi lepas makan malam, aku ke dapur nak basuh tangan. Kebetulan dia tengah basuh pinggan. Jadi aku pun beritahu la dia aku nak basuh tangan. Dia nampak tangan aku penuh dengan bekas makanan. Dia pun ketepi nak kasi aku laluan. Aku baru je nak letak tangan aku, DIA TUTUP PAIP AIR TU! KEJADAHNYA?

Satu lagi yang aku pening, bila aku balik dari buat groceries, buka je pintu fridge tu, mesti penuh. Especially kat freezer. Benda tak banyak. Tapi dia akan susun semua benda sebelah-menyebelah. Kalau ada 5 bungkus burger kat dalam freezer tu, dia susun semua bungkusan tu sebelah-menyebelah. Bukannya stack atas bawah. Sebab tu bila tanya dia kalau barang ada lagi ke tidak, dia akan jawab fridge tu penuh lagi dengan barang makanan. Hakikatnya, barang dah nak habis atau dah habis pun.

Dalam the first posting pasal dia, aku dah sebut dia tak reti baca. Itu aku dah boleh accept. Tapi sampai tak kenal rupa bungkusan tu dengan warna lain-lain, rupa lain-lain, itu satu lagi yang aku tak faham. Kawan kitorang, Spena, bawak Durian Pancake dari Medan. Kitorang simpan dalam fridge. Benda tu dalam kotak plastik siap berbungkus dengan kertas, memang tak nak orang bukak sebab kitorang nak melantak. Dalam fridge tu ada popiah berbungkus jugak.

Satu petang, dia nak goreng popiah. Dia ambik bungkusan durian pancake tu, buka, dan GORENG KESEMUANYA! Yang bestnya, dia pernah goreng popiah dari bungkusan popiah tu. So, aku tak faham kenapa dia tak ambik bungkusan popiah yang lain gila rupanya, dan yang dia pernah buka, untuk goreng? So, dia goreng la durian pancake! Bila anak aku tegur kata itu durian pancake, dia kata,

“Bukan! Ini popiah sudah mau basi jadi mesti dihabiskan cepat.”

Anak aku kata semerbak bau durian, tapi dia masukkan kesemua durian pancake tu ke dalam kuali.

Dia bawak la benda tu ke depan. Bini aku tak tau nak mengamuk ke, nak menangis ke, atau nak ketawa. Aku pun pegang la satu…aku tengok ada bintik-bintik hijau kat durian pancake goreng tu. Aku ingatkan daun sup. Rupanya, kertas wrapper pancake tu yang ada bintik bunga hijau halus. DIA GORENG DENGAN WRAPPER SEKALI!

So, aku harap engkorang faham la kenapa aku masih pening dengan si OR-CARE ni.

PENING!

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Busy Busy

My apologies for not being able to update as often as I would like to. We’re currently rigging down at this present field before moving for our next drilling campaign.

On top of that I have been busy preparing the post-campaign reports, and have been entasked with preparing the whole office tower for its maiden fire drill – and it is not easy trying to get the cooperation of the various subsidiaries. I can imagine the nightmare the 900-odd workers will cause this Friday.

I already have something in mind to write, and I promise I will write on that as soon as I am able to.

In the meantime, this is my next worry.

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A Handwritten Legacy

Here I am, 34,000 feet above sea level traversing the breadth of the South China Sea, trying to type my thoughts to update a blog that has seen a dearth of ideas (and not to mention, postings). Every morning I would wake up with new things to be written; things that would have no relation whatsoever to what I had thought of writing just before I fell asleep the night before. Throughout each day I would be bombarded with more and more ideas, but one would take precedence over the past one as the hour progressed; in the end, I ended up not writing anything.

It is the final day of the month of June 2011 when I am “penning” these thoughts. In nine days, I would be celebrating my 45th birthday, and again I would be thinking about the achievements (or lack thereof) of the past year. Every year since the birth of this blog, I would reminisce and write about the things (often good ones) that have occurred over the past year. Perhaps, this year I would try to digress, if a little, and do something entirely different.
Should I talk about my wife? Or should I talk about my kids? Perhaps I should write something about my job? Perhaps I should write on something that would be the focal point where all these would overlap.

Being 45 means I would have gone way past the half-life of the average life expectancy of modern man – 69, according to UN estimates. Half a century ago I would have been in my twilight years as the global average was 52. Since I turned 40, I have been religiously (save for 2008) going for my twice-yearly full medical screening, not for myself, but for my family, for the job that I have, for good friends whose company I enjoy having, for those whose job rely on how I deal with them in order for them to survive hitch after hitch offshore. At 45, most would be looking forward to retirement; I cannot afford to do so. I will have to try somehow to make myself useful until I am at least 60 years old. I am struggling to lose weight; diet alone would not help, or so people kept telling me, but with two busted ankles, metatarsals on both feet, previously dislocated shoulders have contributed to my current state of weight, and deny me the ability to go to the gym to run on treadmills and lift weights – hence my motto: “No Pain, No Pain.”

But I do take lots of precautionary measures: I down a tablespoonful of pure virgin olive oil every morning before work and at least a tablespoon of organic apple cider vinegar to help my body system; with clear tumour markers bearing negative results, a total cholesterol level of 4.2, and fasting serum sugar of 5.4mmol/l. On top of that the stress-echo test revealed that my heart’s in good condition still.

“…my birthday resolution is to write out my blog entries, have a photo taken of each posting, before I type them out again for them to be posted here…”

As I approach 45, I noticed that my handwriting has gotten worse. Even my signature nowadays looks like a miserable attempt by someone else to forge it, no thanks in part to computers: typing things out have made writing almost redundant. Therefore, my birthday resolution is to write out my blog entries, have a photo taken of each posting, before I type them out again for them to be posted here. I still have the Starbucks organiser for 2010 that my wife gave me (I’m still using the 2009 one), and I will fill that up with my blog postings before I switch to Moleskin ® notebooks.

I’ll call them, my “handwritten legacy.” At least one day after I am gone, my loved ones can look at them and imagine when I wrote each and every entry.

Yes, they would make excellent legacy.

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Chow Ah Beng

Chow Ah Beng

Yesterday evening I received an E-mail from Group Corporate Communications Department inviting me to lunch with the Group CEO next Thursday. Several others were invited as well.

To: Undisclosed Receipients

Dear All,

Dato’ Mxxxxxxx Mxxxxxxx, our Group CEO would like to invite you for a lunch session. The details as below:

Venue : TBC

Date : 30 June 2011

Time : 12.30 – 2.00pm

Your attendance is required. Kindly RSVP by 10.00am, 27 June 2011 by replying to this email.

Thank you and best regards,

Sxxxxxx Zxxxxx

Group Corporate Communications Department

So I immediately replied:

To: Undisclosed Receipients

Dear Sxxxxxx,

Thank you for the invite.

I accept the invitation and shall attend.

Best regards,

Capt John F SeaDemon
QHSE Manager
Kxxxxxx Mxxxxx Drilling

“Know safety, no pain. No safety, know pain”

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device via Vodafone-Celcom Mobile.

This morning, one Chow Ah Beng replied:

To: Undisclosed Receipients

Dear Sxxxxxx,

Thank you for the invitation. I will attend.

The venue is at TBC, where is it located at ?

Thank you.

Best regard

Cxxxx Hxx Kxxxx

WHADDAFARK????

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A Moment of Aberration

Lately, it seems, some people in Malaysia have been preoccupied with pigs’ DNA and ensuring that you have the skills to satisfy a bull elephant in order to keep your husband in check. If you notice the title to this post, it may make you wonder a little.

The story of how lard is found in gelatin that makes up the ingredients of ice-creams in Malaysia can be traced (as far as my memory goes) as far back as 1979 when, being in a hostel surrounded by friends whom had wanted to get it right religious-wise, and having an old boy of the college as the President of the Muslim Youth Association of Malaysia, flyers depiciting the percentage of lard in ice-creams started flying around. Being young, your mind is most easily corrupted influenced. No one then actually challenged the findings, accepting them as the authenticated authority.

Sadly, in the Internet age, people still behave as they did back then. There is so much information cloud flying around in the world wide web for people to verify and authenticate information with, but they just refuse to do so. Not that they don’t, but they choose to believe what they want to believe without being objective about it; refusing to go further than obtaining information from the sources they prefer to believe to be true – be it about pigs’ DNA in, more famously nowadays, Starbucks’s coffee, and IKEA Malaysia’s meatballs.

Sometimes, I wonder where has simplicity in Islam as a way of life has gone? Slowly, those sitting in those chairs administrating the religion are behaving like the Jewish rabbis 100 years into the Common Era; advocating Mishnash and dictating how one should live their life, more often than not, without making reference to the Torah. The words of the rabbis became things inscribed in stone for the Jews, much like how words of the Imams or Ulama nowadays influence over the Muslim population. In the end, we look up at these people as if they have divine status, forgoing God as the Ultimate Being, so much so that Islam is no longer simple, nor is it user-friendly and attractive.

The DNA of pigs would be everywhere we go. In the rivers that make up the water we drink; on the utensils we use; on the handrails of the escalator or the pole inside the LRT trains; on the money that we use – we can use whatever filtration process but there is no guarantee a pig’s DNA will not end up on our hands – even in Saudi Arabia for that matter. So, just go back to basics. Even the former Mufti of Perlis said that as long as the food served was halal, there should be no worries about consuming it, adding that some Muslims were known to have reservations using cups, plates and other utensils in non-Muslim homes. He expressed his disappointment with the prevalence of the misconception, which he described as rubbish.

“I am disappointed with such interpretations of Islam. The religion urges us to think; it heightens our intelligence. But these opinions only make a person less than intelligent .”

Somehow, Muslims especially Malays are lazy at thinking. Which is why we’re always finding ourselves in trouble, or creating trouble for others.

Like I mentioned, this is my moment of aberration – digressing from the norm to speak about things others may not like. But this is me.

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The Lazy Husband

I wanted to blog about this yesterday but I felt so burnt out after office that I just crashed myself onto the bed the moment I arrived home. It’s a compelling issue that has been playing on my mind for a few days now that I thought I should pen it down as soon as I can before it ends up as one of those countless drafts I have on this blog.

Anyway, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a lazy husband. He is so lazy he didn’t leave home to have an affair!

Lazy Husbands exist. My wife had a lazy husband for 7 years before deciding she;d had enough of being the sole breadwinner in the family; feeding not just the kids, but the husband too. Ontop of that, she had to fork out for the groceries, pay the car’s monthly installments, finance his “teh tarik” sessions with “potential clients“, working her butt off while he lazes at home busy on the Playstation.

Anyway, what prompted me to write on this topic is because of what happened to me a few days back. It concerns a “kakak” from a different subsidiary whom I have hardly spoken to, but suddenly approached me at my office asking to lend her some money. It wasn’t a small amount. When told I do not have that kind of money to spare, she left, looking for other “victims” to borrow from.

I didn’t know anything about her until some of my staff members saw her approach me. Apparently according to them, her husband doesn’t work. Not because he is disabled, but because he is just plain lazy. He would portray himself as a successful businessman, but in reality beats his wife up if she doesn’t give him money to spend. They have two children, staying in a double-storey terraced house near Rawang that she’s paying for. She commutes by train to work daily while he drives around Rawang and wherever else in the car that she pays for monthly. She has been borrowing here to cover for the previous loan there. I understand now why my boss’s secretary has been asking her to cater for our office’s small do’s – she can cook well. I think if she were to cook nasi lemak for the husband to sell on a daily basis, they would make at least RM100 per day; that would be more than enough to supplement her income to feed her family and the lazy husband as well.

Of course the husband would have none of that – he does not want to be seen doing odd jobs or jobs that look petty in his eyes.

Deeper probing have revealed that other managers have lend her money before, some up to three years ago, which she has yet to settle. And the amount runs into five-figures, almost triple my gross salary. The problem doesn’t just lie in him as the lazy husband, but in her with her denial syndrome as well. Any talk about asking her husband to look for a job would be met with the usual response, “My husband is a good businessman.”

I certainly feel nobody should lend her anymore money. If she does not want to help herself by either asking the husband to get a job, by her getting out of the marriage to save her future and that of her kids, then she does not deserve help.

As for this kakak, I just wish her well and hope one day her husband will knock some senses into her head – literally.